On: People have no bloody idea about saving energy

[kragen]

My laundry washing machine has a dial on the front for the water temperature, which goes up to 90° (C, obviously). It heats the water electrically as it comes in. All but the cheapest washers sold here in Argentina have such a facility, because hot water is not normally provided to the laundry room. In the US, washers usually have an option to choose hot or cold water. Using cold water instead of hot will use less energy.

Also, "plenty of energy" is not a quantity of energy that can be usefully compared with other quantities of energy. See jws's comment http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1614745 for more calculations.

[sliverstorm → kragen]

Does cold water clean effectively enough?

Also, does using hot water negate the fact that line drying saves energy?

[kragen → sliverstorm]

Cold water sometimes cleans effectively enough.

Certainly for any given water temperature you can line-dry to save even more energy. However, it's important to know that lowering the water temperature by a few degrees does more to reduce your energy usage than line-drying.